


conquistador

by table_matters



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: Endings, M/M, One-Sided Relationship, Tenderness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-30
Updated: 2019-03-30
Packaged: 2019-12-26 20:08:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18289358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/table_matters/pseuds/table_matters
Summary: "The number of people whose dreams come true is very limited. Even for my own dreams, to put it bluntly, the only one that came true is this gold medal. It’s strange to say ‘only’, but I’ve also come this far with many other dreams."





	conquistador

Yuzuru finds himself on the couch in the atheletes’ lounge without any real idea of how he got there. Everything since the free has felt like wading through amber or maybe honey, sticky and sweet. He feels heavy with it, slowed down and unmoored, like this is some golden dream he might wake from on a sunny weekend in Toronto. Even Javi bringing up his retirement has a beautiful, maudlin kind of symmetry to it: it seems fitting that this entire chapter of his life should end at once. 

Shoma had stared mutely at them throughout, either sleepy or quietly dismissive. Yuzuru wonders what he thinks of all this – his medal, the pageantry, the bevy of cameras, coming second. He wonders what it’s like, to be so quiet and so sure. 

Javi comes back with a bucket of ice and roll of plastic bags for the both of them, and suddenly Yuzuru has a ball in his throat again. There is so much he has fought to win and so much more he has just been given, even though he never did anything to deserve it, even though he would never have known to ask.

Javi sits down next to him on the couch, spots of heat where their thighs and shoulders touch, noisily shoveling ice while Yuzuru tries to collect himself. 

"Here," Javi says, shaking the bag under Yuzuru’s nose, "Hey."

This year has been terrible for them, a prickly minefield of fears and silences and resentments, but Javi’s hand on his shoulder is as familiar and precious as it ever was. 

"Javi," Yuzuru says, and Javi sighs and pulls him into his shoulder.

"You don’t have to cry," he murmurs back, voice shaded with that gentle, wry, _tired_ bitterness Yuzuru hates so much, "The cameras are all gone."

"Stop," Yuzuru mumbles, "You know I –"

"Shh," Javi says, "Give me the bag," and Yuzuru stares at the top of his head as Javi kneels to tape the ice pack around his ankle. He takes in the cropped curls and the long sweep of Javi’s eyelashes, the hint of a future bald spot, the way his brow crinkles in concentration. Every inch of him is known and dear, and he’s the best person Yuzuru has ever met.

He tenses at the familiar shock of cold. 

"There," Javi says, looking up with a businesslike smile and a light slap on Yuzuru’s knee, "All done. Where’s Akira when you need him, right?"

 _Kikuchi-san doesn’t ice my ankle,_ Yuzuru wants to tell him. _I’ve always done that myself, my team doesn’t do every little thing for me, why do you have to drag this up again, why do you have to remind us both, when this is the last time?_

"Javi," he pleads instead, and he doesn’t know how to say any of it in English right then so he just grabs Javi’s hand, sandwiches it tight between his own. "Thank you."

Javi looks at him and for a second he is soft, open, like it’s 2013 again and there are barely any medals between them. He lifts a hand to Yuzuru’s cheek and Yuzuru shivers with it. He wishes, stupidly, that this didn’t feel so much like loss. 

So he turns his head, before he can change his mind, before the warm silence between them cools, and presses a kiss into Javi’s open palm. 

He doesn’t want to look back at Javi but he does anyway, takes in the tightening of his mouth and the rapid darting of his eyes, hands to face to lips to floor – because Javi must have known, must have at least suspected – 

"For everything," Yuzuru adds, tears welling up again, and when Javi’s thumb brushes from the top of his cheekbone to his temple he closes his eyes against them. 

"Come here," Javi says from between his knees, and Yuzuru goes, clambering down onto the scratchy carpet so he can hide his face in Javi’s shoulder, trying to draw enough strength from the embrace to last, to remember and warm himself with when things next get tough. Will today be enough for two seasons? One? He isn’t sure. 

Javi’s shoulder is hot and soap-scented from the shower, and his tee-shirt collar presses against Yuzuru’s forehead. He has one arm around Yuzuru’s waist and the other hand wound through the hair at his nape, the barest hint of pressure from his nails, and it makes Yuzuru want to twitch out of his skin. 

If Javi kissed him now, like a parting gift, something pitying and nostalgic and brotherly – Yuzuru doesn’t think he could take it. 

Javi huffs out a breath and it ruffles Yuzuru’s hair, makes him shiver. "I called you a conquistador, once," Javi says. Yuzuru doesn’t know the word, but it doesn’t sound especially positive in Javi’s mouth. "And I meant it. When you want something you fight and fight until you get it, no matter what, no matter who’s in your way. And you want so _much_.”

"I’m sorry," he whispers into Javi’s collarbone, trying to ignore the spiralling dread in his stomach, the shortness of his breath like he’s taken a hard fall straight onto the solar plexus. 

"I know you are." Javi shouldn’t be allowed to sound as worn as he does, but he nudges Yuzuru back up onto the couch, so gentle, and Yuzuru knows that he’s too greedy. He wants all of it, his own gold, gold for Javi and this, even though it can’t be, even though – 

"I’m making you cry again," says Javi. 

"I’m not crying," Yuzuru tries, ready to draw them back to more familiar waters, smiling tremulously over the nausea of what he’s finally done, but Javi shakes his head.

"You took up so much room in my life, for so long," he says, in that careful slow voice he uses when he wants to make sure Yuzuru understands. Yuzuru wishes he could look at him but he can’t, not now, and he picks at the hem of the couch cushion with his thumbnail, _snick snick snick_ until it almost hurts, until he forgets to breathe, "Competing, and training together – at the club, at the shows –"

"On podium," Yuzuru whispers, just to check, and Javi sighs.

"Everywhere, Yuzu. In my heart, in my head. If I… if I could give you this too, don’t you think I would?"

"And now, now we are not –" and he has to stop, to gather himself, because he is weak. Javi squeezes his thigh. "Now we not practicing together anymore? No competition?"

Javi shrugs, brown eyes warm and wide and lost. "I’m sorry," he says.

If Yuzuru kissed him now it would probably be a little uncomfortable, with Javi still kneeling on the floor while Yuzu perches on the couch, but he can almost feel the toe-curling rightness of it, the soft noise Javi would make when he opened his mouth, the ticklish itch of his beard. Breathing hurts and he has no idea where his inhaler is.

"If it’s your girlfriend in Spain,” he says, "If I need to be better, if I need to show –"

"No," Javi says hurriedly, "God no. Yuzu…" 

Yuzuru imagines dragging his thumbs through Javi’s close-shorn curls to feel the denseness of them, their springy, prickly give. 

_You can’t be perfect all the time,_ Brian always tells him. _You can’t win all the time. You just need to make sure you can give your all when it matters most._

"Okay," he says. 

It’s just another mixed zone to get through. 

He finds a smile, finally. "Poor Javi," and he’s aiming for arch but god knows where he ends up, "Too many people loving you, is very hard."

Javi looks so concerned. Yuzuru wishes he hadn’t said anything, hadn’t done anything. This was a mistake. "Is that how you feel?" he asks, still so terribly gentle.

"I keep telling, and no one listen," Yuzuru says lightly. "Without Javi I am not here." Javi opens his mouth and Yuzuru cuts him off, lays a quelling hand on his lips. "Now stop talking. You only make me cry, and I cried enough today."

And just like that, it’s done.


End file.
